Negrito

Negritos (Spanish diminutive of negro " black ", see " Negro " ) is a collective name for several dark-skinned, curly-haired and diminutive ethnic groups in South and Southeast Asia. The ethnological fuzzy term Negrito - which has the Philippine island of Negros given the name - is now widely perceived as derogatory and rejected.

Most following ethnic groups are referred to as " Negritos ":

• The indigenous people of the Andaman Islands, the Andamanese or Andamanide to which the Onge, Jarawa, Sentinelese and Great Andamanese belong,
• About 25 people in the Philippines, including the Aeta and Ati
• The Semang and Senoi on the Malay Peninsula and
• Mani in southern Thailand.

Languages

The Negritos of the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines speak Austronesian languages ​​today that are quite different from those of the neighboring population majorities. Comparable speak the ethnic groups of the Andaman Islands Andaman languages ​​which are related to each other, but with no other language.

Origin, history and kinship

Some anthropologists are the Negrito ethnic groups as residual peoples who are descended from the original inhabitants of the region. They lived in large parts of Southeast Asia and therefore originally were also related to the ancestors of those who were penetrated about 40,000 years ago about Indonesia to New Guinea and Australia, and to today's Papua and Aborigines. By Immigration Agriculture electrifiable Tai - Kadai, Austro- Asiatic, Austronesian and Hmong - Mien peoples from what is now southern China, they were pushed back down to the small areas that they inhabit today.

The ethnic group of Saisiyat on Taiwan celebrates every two years a festival in honor of the " little black man" that should have once lived there. This is considered as evidence that the Negritos have probably lived on Taiwan.

In the past, the Negrito ethnic groups were sometimes victims of slave hunters. Thus began pirate inhabitants of the Andaman Islands as slaves. In Burmese, Indian, Malay, Indonesian and Thai courts there was " little black slaves," of which had at least some andamanesische Negritos. The Semang and others as indigenous people ( Orang Asli ) considered groups on the Malay Peninsula were target of Malay and Batak slavers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Because of their superficial resemblance to the inhabitants of black Africa they were previously partially counted in the United Negroid race; Today you no longer does this, because the construct of race is not scientifically tenable. Because of their small body size, regarded by some a connection has been postulated to African pygmies, but seems unlikely in view of the geographical distance.

Not completely clear is the relationship with the Vedda, which differ from the Negritos mainly by the fact that her hair just curled and not frizzy. According to one assumption, the Negritos are descendants of the first wave of emigration of modern humans from Africa, while the Vedda such a second wave of emigration come. According to other theories, there are two branches from a common origin group.